Guy Wortman Character Analysis

“If the editor of the county paper ain’t against freedom of speech, could I jest put one more question to this young ’un?” Without waiting for a reply, the man called Wortman turned again to Jethro. “What I want to ask you is this: is yore pa good and down on Bill? Does he teach you your brother is a skunk that deserves shootin’ for goin’ against his country?”

Jethro felt a great weakness. He had to steady himself against the counter for a second, and when he spoke the words were the first ones that occurred to him.

“My pa don’t teach me one way or the other. He knows that I think more of my brother than anybody else in the world—no matter where he is. And that’s all I’ve got to say to you.” He looked directly at the man with an anger that dissipated his weakness.

“There be things that’s evil in these woods tonight. I seed evil apassin’ my place a while ago, comin’ in from the shortcut road to town and reelin’ in the saddle. I heered evil braggin’ in the saloon today about layin’ fer a young ’un on his way home.” He reached over and took the reigns from Jethro’s hands. “I’d best drive till we’re out of the brush,” he added. We’re gittin’ close to the place where some piz’nous snake might strike quick.”

The world was turning upside down for Jethro. He felt as if he were someone else […]. When he tried to speak, he found that […] his lips worked as they had often seemed to work in a bad dream to form the words that he wanted to say, but no sound passed them, and there was nothing to do but sit quietly while his mind floundered in the uncertainties that beset it.

If someone had asked Jethro to name a time when he left childhood behind him, he might have named that last week of March in 1862. He had learned a great deal about men and their unpredictable behavior the day he drove alone to Newton; now he was to learn what it meant to be the man of a family at ten. He had worked since he could remember, but his work had been done at the side of some older members of the family; when he had grown tired, he was encouraged to rest or sometimes he was dismissed from the task altogether. Now he was to know labor from dawn till sunset; he was to learn what it meant to scan the skies for rain while corn burned in the fields, or to see a heavy rainstorm lash grain from full, strong wheat stalks, or to know that hay, desperately needed for winter feeding, lay rotting in a wet quagmire of a field.

Jethro heard someone shout his father’s name and Bill’s and the word Copperheads.

Matt fumbled his way to the front door. “Show yore faces,” he called. “Come up and give me a chance to talk.”

There was only raucous, drunken laughter at his words. A bundle of something was thrown at the gate, and then the riders galloped on.

Jethro scrambled down the ladder and ran out into the yard. At the gate there was a bundle of switches tied together with a cord, the symbol adopted by local ruffians as a warning of punishment to follow. He tore off the paper that was attached to the cord and carried it inside to the table, where Ellen had lighted a lamp. On the paper in large printed letters was the message: “Theres trubel fer fokes that stands up fer there reb lovin sons.”

Has justice been done, gentlemen? Has an ailing man who commands the respect of those in this county who recognize integrity—has this man suffered enough to satisfy your patriotic zeal?

May I remind you that Tom Creighton died for the Union cause, that he died in battle, where a man fights his opponent face to face rather than striking and scuttling off into the darkness?

And just in passing, Gentlemen, what have you done lately for the Union cause? Of course you have burned a man’s property—barn, farm implements, hay, and grain; you have polluted his well with coal oil and terrified his family. Furthermore, you have done it quietly, under cover of darkness, never once asking to be recognized in order to receive the plaudits of the county at large. But, has any one of you faced a Confederate bullet? Well, Matt Creighton’s boy has.

“If the editor of the county paper ain’t against freedom of speech, could I jest put one more question to this young ’un?” Without waiting for a reply, the man called Wortman turned again to Jethro. “What I want to ask you is this: is yore pa good and down on Bill? Does he teach you your brother is a skunk that deserves shootin’ for goin’ against his country?”

Jethro felt a great weakness. He had to steady himself against the counter for a second, and when he spoke the words were the first ones that occurred to him.

“My pa don’t teach me one way or the other. He knows that I think more of my brother than anybody else in the world—no matter where he is. And that’s all I’ve got to say to you.” He looked directly at the man with an anger that dissipated his weakness.

“There be things that’s evil in these woods tonight. I seed evil apassin’ my place a while ago, comin’ in from the shortcut road to town and reelin’ in the saddle. I heered evil braggin’ in the saloon today about layin’ fer a young ’un on his way home.” He reached over and took the reigns from Jethro’s hands. “I’d best drive till we’re out of the brush,” he added. We’re gittin’ close to the place where some piz’nous snake might strike quick.”

The world was turning upside down for Jethro. He felt as if he were someone else […]. When he tried to speak, he found that […] his lips worked as they had often seemed to work in a bad dream to form the words that he wanted to say, but no sound passed them, and there was nothing to do but sit quietly while his mind floundered in the uncertainties that beset it.

If someone had asked Jethro to name a time when he left childhood behind him, he might have named that last week of March in 1862. He had learned a great deal about men and their unpredictable behavior the day he drove alone to Newton; now he was to learn what it meant to be the man of a family at ten. He had worked since he could remember, but his work had been done at the side of some older members of the family; when he had grown tired, he was encouraged to rest or sometimes he was dismissed from the task altogether. Now he was to know labor from dawn till sunset; he was to learn what it meant to scan the skies for rain while corn burned in the fields, or to see a heavy rainstorm lash grain from full, strong wheat stalks, or to know that hay, desperately needed for winter feeding, lay rotting in a wet quagmire of a field.

Jethro heard someone shout his father’s name and Bill’s and the word Copperheads.

Matt fumbled his way to the front door. “Show yore faces,” he called. “Come up and give me a chance to talk.”

There was only raucous, drunken laughter at his words. A bundle of something was thrown at the gate, and then the riders galloped on.

Jethro scrambled down the ladder and ran out into the yard. At the gate there was a bundle of switches tied together with a cord, the symbol adopted by local ruffians as a warning of punishment to follow. He tore off the paper that was attached to the cord and carried it inside to the table, where Ellen had lighted a lamp. On the paper in large printed letters was the message: “Theres trubel fer fokes that stands up fer there reb lovin sons.”

Has justice been done, gentlemen? Has an ailing man who commands the respect of those in this county who recognize integrity—has this man suffered enough to satisfy your patriotic zeal?

May I remind you that Tom Creighton died for the Union cause, that he died in battle, where a man fights his opponent face to face rather than striking and scuttling off into the darkness?

And just in passing, Gentlemen, what have you done lately for the Union cause? Of course you have burned a man’s property—barn, farm implements, hay, and grain; you have polluted his well with coal oil and terrified his family. Furthermore, you have done it quietly, under cover of darkness, never once asking to be recognized in order to receive the plaudits of the county at large. But, has any one of you faced a Confederate bullet? Well, Matt Creighton’s boy has.